Delta Goes Big With New All-Suite Business Class

Sliding doors are most commonly associated with Miami balconies, or that Gwyneth Paltrow movie from the late 1990s—not, say, business class of an airplane. Yet that may soon change: Today, Delta Air Lines announced its new Delta One suite class, the world’s first all-suite business class, which will debut in fall 2017 on the carrier's first Airbus A350 and feature 32 suites, each with—you guessed it!—a full-height sliding door. (Emirates and Singapore Airlines offer suites on international first class, but until now this concept was unheard of in business class.)

Delta will be the first U.S. airline to "take" delivery of the A350, the jet lag-ending Airbus that will primarily serve routes between the U.S. and Asia and the Pacific that top 12 hours—think Los Angeles to Sydney, which clocks in at 14. Following the debut of the plane, Delta will progressively roll out the Delta One suite on their Boeing 777 fleet beginning in spring 2018, until the entirety of the fleet—25 Airbus A350 aircraft and 18 Boeing 777 aircraft—have been outfitted with Delta One.

In addition to full, flat-bed seats with direct aisle access, each Delta One suite will also have in-suite, customizable ambient lighting; memory foam-enhanced cushions; dedicated stowage compartments for shoes, headphones, and laptops; a universal power outlet and high-powered USB port; and an 18-inch, high-resolution in-flight entertainment monitor, the largest among U.S. carriers. Even better? Customers won't have to pay any more to fly in the suites than they already do to fly in the Delta One hybrid first/business-class category. “This is a product upgrade, not a price upgrade,” Tim Mapes, Delta’s chief marketing officer, told the New York Times. At present, a round-trip ticket in Delta One from Los Angeles to Sydney costs roughly $4,000 more than a seat in the main cabin, so this could be a great incentive to upgrade or splurge with those extra miles you have.

It's not the first advancement Delta has made in the past few months: Earlier this summer, the airline introduced "innovation lanes" to speed up lengthy TSA delays, and in July, Delta was the first U.S. airline to make in-flight entertainment free for all passengers on domestic flights (United and American shortly followed suit.) Only time will tell if the other U.S. airlines follow suite—oops, we mean suit—on this latest news.